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B. Regional cooperation
Two issues prevail in the Central Asian discourse on security threats coming
from Afghanistan. The first was drugs trafficking, and the other militant religious
extremism. The political leaderships in the five republics think very differently
about how important these security threats are and about their potential impact on
the region. Since the peoples in Central Asia are nominally predominantly
Muslim, the perceived threat of religious extremism generally signifies Islamist
militant extremism. This threat entails both the impact of radical ideology on
political systems and the violence caused by religiously motivated terrorism. The
terms ‘Islamist’ or ‘religious’ extremism appear to be labels used for a range of
security threats with varying connections to Afghanistan.
In contrast to Islamism, the link between Afghanistan and drugs trafficking is
self-explanatory. Afghanistan is the world’s leading heroin producer. The size of
this threat is quantifiable in terms of assessments by the UNODC of the amounts
of narcotics trafficked through Central Asia to Russia and Europe. Exact
information about the drugs trade’s impact on the economic and social spheres of
Central Asia is scarce and conditions vary between the countries. Although
widespread corruption exists in the region in symbiosis with the drugs trade, the
five republics are affected in different ways. The UNODC believes that
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are the most vulnerable countries because drugs
smuggling networks permeate the state power structures.
Corruption aside, several other structural problems facilitate the drugs trade in
Central Asia. There are few regional mechanisms for dealing jointly with
transnational problems – not only drugs trafficking but also religious militant
extremism. Two reasons for this are the different states’ varying threat
perceptions and a high degree of mistrust between them. Thus, cooperation
between Central Asian countries seems generally to be bilateral or heavily
influenced by concerned outsiders, for example, within the CSTO or the SCO.
This section of the report further investigates the effects on Central Asia of the
two main threats, militant religious extremism and drugs smuggling. It also
includes perspectives on the viability of regional cooperation between the Central
Asian states in order to handle security threats emanating from Afghanistan.
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